Gifts Today magazine

Peter Rabbit's worth a mint

The Royal Mint adds to Beatrix Potter collection

The Royal Mint has announced that four new designs will be added to the Beatrix Potter collection for 2017.

The 50p coins, finished in full colour, will be released over the course of 2017 to supplement the 2016 collection that celebrated the much-loved author’s 150th anniversary.

The 2016 collection gave pride of place on British coinage to Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddleduck, Squirrel Nutkin and Mrs Tiggywinkle. The range was enormously popular and the coloured commemorative coins sold out within days from The Royal Mint website.

The 2017 collection, developed in collaboration with Penguin Random House (publisher of Beatrix Potter’s Tales) will once again kick off with a famously cheeky character from Potter’s books Peter Rabbit himself. This will be followed by Benjamin Bunny, Tom Kitten and Jeremy Fisher, all re-imagined in full colour to fit onto a beautifully-finished commemorative coin.

Designer for The Royal Mint, Emma Noble, was chosen to immortalise Potter’s much-loved illustrations for the 2017 coin collection. In addition, to the first Beatrix Potter collection, Emma has previously worked on coins commemorating the 60th anniversary of The Queen’s coronation, Remembrance Sunday, and King George I.

Each coin’s obverse side bears the fifth definitive portrait of The Queen by Royal Mint Engraver Jody Clark, first introduced to UK coinage in 2015.

Thomas Merrington, Brand Manager for Peter Rabbit at Penguin Ventures said: 'We are so delighted to be working once again with The Royal Mint on a new series of Beatrix Potter coins. The success of the original range is testament to the incredible craftsmanship and attention to detail that Emma Noble achieved in her designs and also to the love and affection shown towards Beatrix Potter’s characters by the general public. We can’t wait to see which of the new character designs will be most popular.'